


A Shadow of Doubt

by Chthonia



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Interrogation scene, POV Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 16:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5504096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chthonia/pseuds/Chthonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He catches her and <em>holds</em> her.  And she hates him for it, this girl who is used to running and fighting free and cannot stand being caged by the raw power he wields...</p><p>The latter half of <em>The Force Awakens</em>, as experienced by Kylo Ren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> So, yes, this is basically a retelling of the second half of the movie from Kylo Ren's point of view. It started out as a way to re-immerse myself in those scenes and also to restate his strengths after the movie took him apart. (Sure, he has his issues, but someone who can stop blaster fire, read minds and casually slaughter entire villages is not to be taken lightly.) But working it through, I was surprised to see how different the story looked when viewed from the shadows.
> 
> I've marked this as Reylo because I was inspired to write it by the Ren/Rey interactions in the movie. But I'm (nearly) sticking to the script, so if you're looking for porn or romance, you won't find it here (sorry). If, however, you'd like to spend some time as the guest of Kylo Ren, then please step this way.
> 
> Be warned, though, these are Kylo Ren's thoughts, and Kylo Ren's head is not a nice place to be. Particularly not on this particular day.

 

She doesn't stand a chance.

Oh, she has the will to survive; he can _feel_ it even if it weren't obvious from her furious scramble to escape. But she is out of place. A desert creature used to desert sky and desert silence, foreign in a world so moist and green, so crowded with trees and noise and earth-scented air. Her determination can't erase her misreading of the position of her enemies, the slipperiness of leaf-covered rock, the very gravity of the planet… Small errors, he'll allow her that. But they ease a hunter's pursuit.

So he catches her and _holds_ her. And she hates him for it, this girl who is used to running and fighting free and cannot stand being caged by the raw power he wields.

Hate is good. He knows how to use hate. Hate rushes out to attack and leaves open a door he can slip through with ease.

_It's true. The Force, the Jedi. All of it._

Her mind echoes with the stories she's heard. She looks at his black robes and mask, sees for a moment his grandfather, and clamps down on the flash of fear as tightly as he clamps down on her need to _run_.

She has run far enough.

He paces behind her. She tries to keep him in sight, but he holds her head still. She hates him for that, too.

"The droid." His lightsaber cuts the air; he stops it precisely an inch from her face. "Where is it?"

He doesn't really expect her to tell him, not without… persuasion. But persuasion is easier when oiled with fear.

Her life is his. And she knows it; it's clear in her flinch from the plasma blade. An acknowledgement of his strength, if not an acceptance of it. Yet.

A further demonstration is in order.

He walks round to face her, stretches out his arm, and _reaches_.

Her resistance causes her pain. She won't give up the location of the droid – or maybe she can't. It's somewhere in these woods she doesn't know, and he already knows that. But there's a strength to her refusal he didn't expect. It's bolstered by a belief. A purpose…

She knows what the droid is carrying. No… she's _seen_ what the droid is carrying. This worthless creature from a worthless desert planet knows the secret that has eluded every effort of the First Order!

And now he will know it too.

A shout: the resistance is attacking; there are not enough troops here to defeat them.

He gives the order to pull out: he has what he needs.

_Her._

_She_ has what he needs. And he will take it.

He smothers her conscious mind, catches her as she crumples.

She's lean, as are all scavenger rats, and he lifts her easily. Her face slack, she looks as vulnerable as she is, in need of protection, and there is something in him that almost… but he will not protect her from himself. Not when she holds the key he has sought for so long.

He picks his way back to the shuttle, half aware of the battle coming to an end around him as he flexes the Force to deflect the stray and not-so-stray projectiles that threaten them both. She is warm in his arms.

He finds himself unwilling to leave her in the custody of stormtroopers. He senses their scepticism, silently dares them to express it. They do not, of course. For it is not the girl he is guarding, but the information she carries.

So he himself straps her into a chair for the take-off, stands over her during the lightspeed jump, brushes her hair from her cheek.

There is no hate in her now. There would be, he knows, if he allowed her awareness of where she is and where they are going. It is tempting to let her wake, to drink in her fear of what must come. But that would be inefficient. And there is something in him that prefers to see her without that defiant mask.

He feels a shiver in the Force. As if, even unconscious as she is, there is some current of fate between them.

A ridiculous notion! She is no-one; her only destiny is to give up the map and play no further part in his.

And yet…

He knows the ebb and flow of the Force. He will not let it trouble him now. But light and dark are tangled too tightly in this. And that does trouble him.

It will wait for their return to Starkiller Base.

There, he can dissect her undisturbed.


	2. Behind Locked Doors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has learned not to believe in co-incidence. It is time for answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank-you for the comments and kudos! So, here's the scene that will probably become my most-rewatched ever when the DVD is out in April. I hope I've done it justice.

 

He has not let her out of his sight.

He does allow a stormtrooper to carry her off the shuttle – he has appearances to maintain, after all. But he follows close behind as she is taken to the interrogation chamber. She must not be damaged.

He checks her restraints when the stormtrooper has left. The steel will hold her body; this time, his focus will be on her mind.

He rests two fingers against her neck, as if there is something in her steady life-pulse that might explain the connection he felt earlier.

_Who are you?_

A scavenger, picking over the carcasses of the dead. But a scavenger who escaped from his troops on Jakku, taking with her that droid and its secret. A scavenger who tried to attack him. A scavenger who, however unlikely it would seem, appears to be significant in this.

_Why?_

He has learned not to believe in co-incidence. It is time for answers.

He crouches, watching her face as he allows her to wake.

She jerks into consciousness; he feels her confusion at forest green turned suddenly to metal grey, her fear as she pulls at the restraints and her eyes find _him_ , the one constant between that moment and this.

Her voice trembles. "Where am I?"

She is terrified. She has every reason to be.

"You're my guest." The _where_ is irrelevant.

"Where are the others?"

Also irrelevant. 

He speaks with deliberate dismissal. "You mean the murderers, traitors and thieves you call friends. You'll be relieved to hear I have no idea."

He has seen this so many times before. She doesn't know if he tells the truth; doesn't even know which truth she'd prefer. If he's lying, her friends are dead. If he's not, they are far from coming to her aid. It's a tedious question that changes nothing: she is still captive; he is no closer to the information he seeks.

He watches her for a moment longer.

"You still want to kill me," he says. It is a reproach: he is irked by her ignorance, her urge to destroy rather than understand. But it is also a compliment, of sorts. She evidently has some skill at using hate to overcome fear.

She glares at him. "That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask."

 _Creature?_ So typical of the light side to think itself superior! She can dismiss a 'creature in a mask' as something from a childhood nightmare, but Kylo Ren will not be so dismissed. He will make her nightmare real.

He raises his hands to his helmet, lifts it off, stands to his full height. Sees her for the first time with his own eyes.

He unsettles her. He doesn't know what monster she expected to see, but her furrowed brows betray her confusion as her gaze flickers between his familiar black robes and his unfamiliar face. He feels again that strange eddy in the Force. 

He drops his helmet onto his grandfather's ashes, moves to stand over her.

She will not look at him now. She glances up once and then stares past him.

"Tell me about the droid."

His tone is conversational. Hers is mechanical.

"He's a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator-"

He is half amused, half irritated by her evasion. But she has wasted enough of his time.

He interrupts. "He's carrying a section of a navigational chart, and we have the rest, recovered from the archives of the Empire. But we need the last piece, and somehow you convinced the droid to show it to you." He watches her closely; she stares stubbornly ahead. "You," he repeats, "a scavenger."

She looks at him then, needled by his contempt. And still unwilling to give him what he needs.

He shakes his head at her obstinacy. "You know I can take whatever I want."

She looks away as he moves his hand towards her. She shudders at his proximity, sets her mind against his intent. But this time he is not looking for the map; he is looking for _her._

He does not expect the vast sea of loneliness behind her brittle façade. No family, no friends, a life spent scrabbling to survive, fiercely holding an increasingly forlorn hope that someone will return for her.

He is so close to her now, she is hardly aware of what she is leaking. He takes what she offers and murmurs it back to her… _So lonely… So afraid to leave… At night, desperate to sleep, you imagine an ocean…_

She takes short shaking breaths, desperate to hold on to these things she has never shared with anyone.

_Wouldn't she rather give him one small map?_

He lifts his head to watch her tears as he taunts her with her secrets, almost crooning the words. _"I see it… I see the island…"_

And then he sees something else, and he knows he was right to renounce coincidence.

"And Han Solo."

What does this girl think he could give her that he couldn't give to his own son? There's a bitter edge to his voice as he punctures her fantasy. "You feel like he's the father you never had. He would have disappointed you."

"Get out of my head." She grinds out the words.

He withdraws. His point is made. And as she will not share, he will have to take.

He stands back, stretches out his hand. "I know you've seen the map. It's in there. And now you'll give it to me."

He seizes her mind with a tug that pulls her physically towards him. She grits her teeth. His grip slips.

_That shouldn't happen._

He tightens his hold again. This time he feels her push back against him. Push back against him _with the Force_. 

And it crashes against him, that tight knot of light and dark he sensed before. He absorbs it all: her loneliness, that hunger to belong that is as familiar to him as his own skin, her loyalty to her so-called friends, her rage at his intrusions… she is fighting for the light with the tools of the dark, and she has no idea how near she is to falling.

There is no such thing as coincidence. It is the Force that has brought her to him, raw and angry, carrying a lifetime of fear and abandonment and alienation. He understands that as no one else can; he can teach her to _use_ it. 

She lashes out wildly, almost as frightened of this thing that has woken inside her as she is of him.

“Don’t be afraid,” he tells her. “I feel it too.”

She gasps for breath. “I’m not giving you anything.”

“We’ll see.” She has no idea what she's dealing with. Soon, he will show her, and then she will give him _every_ thing.

But first, the map.

He pushes in hard, sifting her thoughts for memories of the droid – flashes of it caught in a net, trundling beside her through the sands of Jakku, following her into the forest on Takodana...

She's blocking him, he realises, showing the irrelevant to hide the important.

He changes tack.

Her memories of him are lit up by terror that guides him in like a tractor beam. He sees the forest through immobile eyes, feels the heat of a lightsaber blade too close to his cheek, and unravels her from there.

She is running: running from him, running from where she left the droid, running from the sight of his shuttle swooping from the sky. But before that, she was running from something else: running beneath the courtyard flags, running down the castle steps-

The door to the castle slams in his face. He slashes at it in fury; hears her gasp in pain. She is holding it firm from the other side; taking down the door would take her and the map with it.

She is leaning towards him now, sweat-drenched and determined. But desperation cannot make up for her lack of skill; he knows a way round these makeshift defences.

He reaches for the shadows woven through her. He echoes her memories of abandonment with his of neglect, her longing for family with his for a self that _fits_ , her loneliness with his isolation. And he slips across the tapering barrier between them.

It is a sun-seared desert, this outer edge of her. He glides across arid sand, searching for the fertile centre where he can drink in all that she knows.

But the sand is endless, the sun scorching. He stifles a whisper of doubt. He has to find what he came for. She cannot elude him, cannot become cause for his Master's harsh censure, Hux's bureaucratic disdain, the stormtroopers' masked sneers.

He pushes on, head aching with the effort.

"You."

The word echoes in his mind. She has found him, and he still hasn’t reached her. He is going to fail, he knows suddenly, and this evidence of his weakness horrifies him. How can he live up to his legacy, how can he command respect, if he can be stopped by an untrained stray?

The heat of the sun is unbearable, his headache a spear of pain. 

"You're afraid..." There's venom in her voice.

 _She is the sun,_ he realises, a merciless light to burn away shadows and see everything. He summons cool night darkness to shield him, desperately calling on his grandfather's strength.

She seizes the thought and stabs it at him.

"...afraid that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader."

He flings her away.

The pain in his head fades to a dull ache.

She stares at him, ragged-breathed, triumphant and terrified.

He stares at her. And he is NOT afraid, however this nothing girl might delude herself. He will not be afraid.

She was in his head. _She_ was in _his head_.

How?

_How dare she?_

He reins in his rage. Part of him wants to blast through her barrier, to destroy her and what she has seen. But he has a greater need for answers: he needs to know _how_ ; he needs to make sure this never happens again; he wants to plumb the depths of her potential. He will not endanger that.

And there is still the map.

He needs guidance. Now. Further exploration must wait.

He reaches for his helmet, lifts it into place. His world steadies under its weight.

And when he looks at her now, her brief victory – a victory she didn’t even understand – has wilted. He is a monster in a mask again, a blank face from which she can read nothing, leaving only her fears to tell her what he will make her suffer for seeing what no-one should see.

He watches her in silence for a full minute: a mere instant to one accustomed to meditation; an eternity for one waiting for the executioner. He watches her try to hide her growing agitation: her effort to keep her hands from shaking; her attempt to find a non-existent weak spot in her restraints; her rigid forward stare in futile pretence that she isn’t one hundred percent focussed on him.

He lifts a hand to her face. It is gratifying to see her flinch.

He considers leaving her unconscious. But he is unsure now of how much force he would need, or how that might risk the Force stirring within her. And there are advantages in letting her reflect on her fate while she waits for his return.

And he will return with the key that unlocks her.

He turns away, leaving her to her nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is _“Don’t be afraid, I feel it too”_ not the shippiest line in the whole movie? What is there in all the galaxy that Rey and Kylo Ren could both feel that would _not_ be cause for Rey to be afraid? I am very curious about the intentions of the film-makers here (the line in the novelisation is a bit different and refers to him not wanting to hurt her). Are they really canonising the ship? Is Kylo just being creepy to mess with her head?


	3. Without Restraints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Through passion, I gain strength._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An interlude of sorts, but important for what comes later.

 

_If what you say about this girl is true, Bring. Her. To. Me._

He knows that the Supreme Leader doesn’t doubt him. That knowledge, the unexpected gift that is the girl, helped him curb his anger at Hux’s pathetic jibes about the droid. But it also frustrates him. Why wouldn’t his Master tell him how to peel away her shell? Does he think him too weak to do what needs to be done – or does he suspect something in her that he doesn’t want to share?

Kylo Ren does not like that. He wants to mould her himself.

He quickens his pace towards the interrogation chamber.

He will try one more time to pierce her armour. He thinks he knows, now, how she resisted him before, and it is both galling and gratifying. She has proven herself to be an adept pupil, by following his use of the Force enough to turn it against him. But this time he will be more careful to shield himself. Her next lesson will be one of his choosing.

But as he nears the cell, he knows something is wrong. He had barely been aware of her presence in the Force when he brought her here; now, he is wholly aware of her absence.

Rage coils in his gut.

He stalks around the empty chair. The restraints are open. Undamaged. 

Someone has released her.

_Is the base riddled with traitors?_

She is gone. She is gone, and so is his map, her tantalising force presence, and the secret she stole from him. She should have been here, waiting for him, and she is _gone._

His lightsaber burns. One swing and the top of the apparatus is a molten ruin. Stupid, useless contraption! It should be holding her head, just _there!_ One thing it was built for, _one thing!_ What's the point of it if it can't do that one _simple_ thing? Double-ringed arm restraints: useless. Triple-strength leg shackles: useless. Durasteel frame: so strong and so useless, useless, _useless!_

He steps back, breathing hard. The chair is in pieces at his feet. He powers down his lightsaber.

Why can't he keep _control?_

His fist clenches. A chunk of metal flies across the room.

He breathes in, out, quells the wildfire to a steady burn.

_Through passion, I gain strength._

His Master taught him that. There is power in his rage, power that let him fling grown men across a room before he was twelve. The Jedi may have tried to bind him with the weak lie of peace, but Supreme Leader Snoke freed him to embrace his passions, to fuel them, to use them. His mother and uncle saw only a flaw, but it makes him strong, just as his lightsaber burns more fiercely for the crack in the crystal at its core.

And, like his lightsaber, he needs to vent to stabilise his flame.

He just needs to direct that flame.

And right now he needs to direct it at finding _her._


	4. Through the Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That boy had been mistaken about a great many things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, and for such a short chapter - I'm not the fastest writer at the best of times, and RL got in the way a little.
> 
> I finally got myself on tumblr (as chthonya) should anyone out there feel like making a confused newbie feel less lonely...
> 
> I've cheated a little here - I realised that Kylo's mind needed a little more probing before getting to the next confrontation, so I've borrowed a little from the novelisation (and a certain missing scene that I hope we will get to see in April). Next chapter we'll be back to the script.

 

He has underestimated her. Again.

He suspects the truth of it, when he's told that the stormtrooper left to guard her has been found relaxing in his quarters. As soon as the man is dragged in front of him, showing as much confusion as fear, he _knows._

He probes the too-clean mind anyway. It holds no sign of her.

But she cannot be far away; she itches at the back of his mind. There has indeed been an awakening - and he has hastened it.

She must be found. She must be found before her newborn powers cause havoc. And she must be found before Hux's minions find her. He needs her alive.

Snoke would view this as weakness, but he knows it is not. The connection he felt in the Force is no mere sentiment; it is a well of strength and he will track it to its source.

So he _looks_ through the Force, disregarding a thousand pin-pricks of life to home in on a vivid light, somewhere below ... moving away from where he stands ... moving towards Hangar… 718. He catches a thought: _...might be my only chance to get offplanet. He won't allow me to manipulate him or anyone else again._

Oh, she is right about that. And nor will he allow her to run from him again.

He knows she knows how to hide, has glimpsed her memories of climbing through cavernous dead starships and contorting herself into crawlspaces most people wouldn't even know were there. But she does not know how to hide from him.

He orders a lock-down of the hangers; she will not run far.

But as he reaches for her again, he senses something else. A presence once as familiar to him as his own skin. A presence that should not be possible here.

"Han Solo..."

* * *

The ship lies half-buried in snow at the end of a swathe of splintered trees; evidently it has not had the smoothest of landings.

Some things don't change.

A surprised snowtrooper comes to attention. Kylo Ren strides up the ramp and hits the switch to close himself in.

The ship feels… small. To the boy his former self had been, it had been a vast playground built on the promise of adventure. But that boy had been mistaken about a great many things. Kylo Ren knows the clean lines and efficiency of the First Order now, and can see the battered freighter for what it is - a desert-grimed relic long overdue for the scrapheap.

Much like its owner.

The corridors are so cramped he has to duck to enter the cockpit. He slides into the pilot's chair, rests a hand on the controls, then pops the catches to release his helmet. Breathes in air soured with sweat and grease and the dust of a hundred worlds.

The memories swamp him.

…his father's hand on his shoulder as he looks out at the blue-white rush of hyperspace… fidgeting with a stiff new tunic on the way to Coruscant… sitting on his bunk listening to his parents fight and fuck… his father yelling at him to hide during those unscheduled cargo stops… that final trip after his mother finally decided he wasn't worth her while… the last glimmer of the sublight drive disappearing into space…

_Enough._

Kylo Ren keeps thoughts of the time _before_ carefully locked away, a hoard of betrayal and broken dreams, each to be carefully taken out and examined and twisted to fuel his rage. But the smell of the _Falcon_ now is the same as the _Falcon_ then, and it's as if that key has opened the door to his former self.

_Weak._

This is what Snoke had sensed in him. This is what he must sacrifice.

He feels a shimmer of relief. _Her_ relief. It seems she has found her so-called friends.

Well, so much the worse for them.

The roar of engines shatters the silence. Fusial ion engines. _X-wings._ Far inside where the base shields _ought_ to be.

Hux will not survive this failure.

He seizes his helmet and locks it into place. There is a prickle along his spine that is part anticipation, part apprehension, all destiny. 

Han Solo has interfered with him for the last time.


	5. Above the Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only way to survive is to cut away the part that wants to be cared for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it's clear who's doing and saying what. I don't have a Star Wars writing buddy so I'm flying without a wingman here. So please let me know if anything doesn't make sense. Or if it does. ;)
> 
> And I finally succumbed and got myself on tumblr, as chthonya. Still haven't got my head round the best way to make use of it but I'd be glad of some company!

 

The oscillation chamber is quiet, but he _sees_ the rats scurrying in the shadows.

Han Solo and the Wookie are close, out of sight amid the columns and stairways. And the girl is approaching, somewhere above, the flickering of her newborn Force powers unmistakable.

Convenient. 

A flare of rage, quickly smothered, as he senses the traitor. So it was FN-2187 that led the Resistance to this place?

Still, what do they think they can do against the might of the First Order?

He sends the troopers up to take out the Wookie. Kylo Ren's own prey is below.

A narrow walkway spans the chasm. He walks out onto it, _listening_.

The shout comes from behind him.

_"BEN!"_

He freezes.

That name. It was _buried_. How dare he dig it up and throw it at him now?

He turns. He had not expected the man to be so grey, so lined, so shrunken. 

"Han Solo," he says, deliberately calm. "I've been waiting for this day for a long time."

The man winces at the mechanical voice. Fool: did he really think recognition would come easily?

He steps onto the bridge, starts to close the distance between them. His swaggering walk is less certain than in the hoarded memories. But the voice is still strong.

"Take off that mask!" he calls. "You don't need it!"

Kylo Ren sneers. As if Han Solo has ever known what anyone needed.

He calls back: "What do you think you'll see if I do?"

"The face of my son."

It's a challenge, and there is anger in it, as if the mask is the only thing preventing him from seeing what he seeks. He will be disappointed. Han Solo abandoned his son, turned him over to the Jedi to learn to deny his true self. What does he think is left after so many years?

Let him see, then. And besides, it would be too easy to do what needs to be done from behind a mask. Kylo Ren needs to feel this clearly.

He removes the helmet, the weight of it heavy in his hand.

The man stares, as if he's both memorising every detail of his face and desperate to find something familiar.

The long-ago boy would have given anything to see his father look at him like that. But the earliest lessons hold true – people aren't there when you need them and even when they say they care, they don't care enough to stay. In the end, the only way to survive is to cut away the part that wants to be cared for.

"Your son is gone," says Kylo Ren. "He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him."

Han Solo walks forward again. "That's what Snoke wants you to believe, but it's not true. My son is alive."

"No." Han Solo's son is a ghost - a ghost his Master had sensed when he could not. "The Supreme Leader is wise."

"Snoke is using you for your power," says Han Solo. "When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you." He stops walking, close enough now that every line in his face is evident. "You know it's true."

Obviously: that is how power works. The strong rule the weak and the weak can either become strong or learn to run. Perhaps he shouldn't be surprised that a man who has spent his entire life running doubts his son's strength. What does he know about power or what it costs to get it? What did he ever think he had to offer?

He has nothing to offer now. There is no way back. Even if he wanted one.

"It's too late," he says.

Han Solo steps closer. "No, it's not," he says. "Leave here with me, come home. We miss you."

Does he really believe it would be that easy? Does he really expect him to crawl back and live a coward's life, forsaking everything he has become?

But few people know his face. It would be possible to drop the mask, to find a place where no one knew his adult self, to live in the shadows instead of creating them. And part of him longs to give in to the pull of the light, would accept a lesser life to be free of the constant rage, the hate, the loneliness.

He despises that part of him, that treacherous ghost of his former self that wants to undermine everything he has built. But he pulls it forward, opens his mind to it. _This_ is the part of himself he needs to sacrifice if he is to fully embrace the dark.

It doesn't want to die.

He wants to go home. He remembers laughter, friendship, crazy landspeeder races, taking his father's Corellian brandy to a lakeside party and spending the next day feeling like a bantha's arse. He wants to feel _alive_ again. He is tired of being alone, of being surrounded by people who only hate him or fear him or want to use him. He is tired of feeling the pain of the galaxy and using it to fuel more pain. He wants his mother's arms around him, to beg for forgiveness even though he knows nothing can wash away the blood on his hands.

_Weak._

Kylo Ren's voice, faint at the back of his mind.

But his father is here, come for him despite everything. If the galaxy's greatest cynic can believe in him, surely he can find a way out of the mire?

"I'm being torn apart," he tells him, his eyes adding a desperate plea for _help_. "I want to be free of this pain."

His father's anguish mirrors his own. He blinks away tears. 

_Weak._

He pushes the voice away. "I know what I have to do but I don't know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me?"

The words are not wholly his. He means them, every one, but so does Kylo Ren.

But his father sees only what he wants to see. "Yes," he says, taking a final step forward. "Anything."

He drops his helmet; it clunks onto the walkway. He unclips his lightsaber and feels the weight of it, of all he has done, of all he has become. He cradles it in both hands. He offers it to his father.

Who searches his face, doubt struggling with hope. And reaches out to relieve him of his burden.

He wants to let go. But he doesn't. He wants to go home, and if he wants to go home, he has to turn from the dark side. But the lightsaber is the instrument of his strength; he built it himself. He does not want to be weak, doesn't want the light to make him vulnerable. He wants to go home. But there is no home for him now, and if there was it would smother him as it did before.

It is the doubt that snaps him back to himself. It was doubt that had first shown him that the light was a lie. Light always casts a shadow, but the darkness is absolute.

The ghost tries to pull him back. But Kylo Ren is stronger, and he has already waited too long.

His hands curl around the lightsaber. Han Solo frowns in confusion, concern-

And Kylo Ren finally drops his mask as the saber flares to life, a red blade of pure power that punches through his father's chest.

He _feels_ the man's shock, his pain. He feels the ghost being consumed by revulsion and despair. It is everything he could have dreamed of.

He pushes the hilt in further, leans forward, looks Han Solo in the eyes.

"Thank-you," he murmurs. And oh, how he means it.

He jerks the blade free. The man staggers, his hand caressing the cheek of his imaginary son. Kylo Ren stands impassive. He catches a last thought: a woman, her grey hair in braids. _Bring him home…_

So his mother missed his former self so much she sent her husband to his death. The light has no sense of perspective.

Han Solo falls. Ben Solo falls with him. And Kylo Ren steps free.

Freedom feels strangely empty.

A roar. A bolt of agony that sends him to his knees. He embraces it, doubles over from the pain, twists it to feed his strength.

Shouting. _Pain_. Blaster fire. And everything explodes in flame.

The walkway convulses but holds firm.

 _Someone_ above wishes it hadn't.

He sees them then: the traitor, staring down as if his challenge alone could cast him into the abyss. And the girl, full of horror and grief.

This, then, is his second lesson to her.

_This is what happens when you yield to hope._


End file.
